Over a quarter of Australians are either active or ‘lapsed’ intellectual property thieves according to the Intellectual Property Awareness Foundation (IPAF).

 

Research conducted by the IPAF found that while 63 per cent of us don’t suffer from such online kleptomania, 10 per cent of the population are pathological thieves of online content, while 17 per cent casually dabble in IP theft.

 

The report also found that 10 per cent are regarded as ‘lapsed’ illegal downloaders. We presume this means that they have returned to their nefarious ways after being put through some Orwellian re-education camp.

 

The findings come after it emerged that one in every 10 IP thief had stopped downloading pirated films because of the advent of legal alternatives. This comes after results showed that James Cameron’s Avatar has been downloaded over 16 million times.